6+ BBQ Catering Business Plan Examples – PDF

Do you love cooking barbecue? Why not turn this into a small business, say, a barbecue catering business?

A lot of existing barbecue catering services are booked for various outdoor events such as corporate picnics, backyard parties, family and friends parties, carnivals and fairs, sports events, and even weddings. Through such business venture, you can actually let your creativity and love for cooking barbecues go wild because you can definitely create your own barbecue recipe, or if not, you can also be able to try out various barbecue specialties depending on what your clients would request. You may also see business proposal examples & samples.

There are a lot of things you need to consider when starting a barbecue catering business such as the goods and service you can possibly offer to your customers. You would also then think of having a specialty that can help you stand out among the other existing barbecue catering business. On top of it all, you would then have to deal with planning on the number of servers you need to hire as well as the tools and equipment in order to serve your customers well. You may also like service proposal examples.

With all the challenges you would possibly face, you might need to have a business plan to help you with. Like any other businesses, a business plan can help you set things straight before you would start hiking up on your barbecue grilling adventures. After all, a catering business and any other kind of business do not simply deal with the fun cooking and serving part—it also deals with a lot of technicalities particularly finances, marketing, and licensing issues. Additionally, you will eventually have to deal with creating concrete short-term and long-term goals for your business as well as the types of events you want to get your catering business involved in. You may also be interested in writing a business proposal letter.

With the growing interest in food as well as the growing need of having a lifetime career, it also results to the increase of the earning potential of various new edible businesses because it easily adds up the best of both worlds or hits two birds with one stone. You might have noticed it—be it in the news, the Internet, and even in just your own locality—that a lot of creative ideas related to food are discovered every day and such creative discoveries make it possible for them to earn a living while doing what they love which is food. In fact, those who love cooking and even eating barbecues take up a big number of this sector.

This business sector is easy to enter to especially if you are a natural when it comes to giving services and offering delicacies to people. Through having a barbecue catering business, you will be able to do more than that; this career path can actually provide you a myriad of options and paths that you can ever explore. However, being in this business does not mean that it’s all fun since you are able to transform something that you love into something that is profitable. There are a lot of things you need to consider before getting in, but despite all the hard work the whole experience would entail, it would be worth it once your business would finally start operating.

How to Start a BBQ Restaurant

Things to Consider When Starting a Barbecue Catering Business

Catering businesses are fun but most of the time, there’s actually more than that. Learn more about the things you need to consider upon starting a barbecue catering business below:

Venues

The possible venues for a barbecue catering business are the following:

fairs

sporting events

corporate meetings

weddings

special events

street trucks and carts

bricks-and-mortar restaurant

function rooms

Staffing

There is a possibility that you might get booked with an event that has more than 20 or so attendees. This means that you need to have additional staffing so that you will be able to serve each of the attendees well, from the serving of the food to the cleanup. Make sure that the number of staff is just enough for the number of attendees as well as the number of tasks there is to do or whether the food or the barbecue will be served buffet-style. Avoid overstaffing because it would just yield to unnecessary expenses.

It is important that you would provide correct staffing because this actually has an impact on the satisfaction of the customers and most importantly, to your potential earnings for that single booking. Even if you have the number of staff that is directly proportional to your number of the guest attendees but your servers are slow and inefficient, it would still result to unhappy guests and the most dreaded of all, a dissatisfied client.

Expenses

Your overall costs in food actually have a great and direct impact on your earning potential of a single booking. You will possibly be spending the ingredients for the barbecue which takes up most of your budget once you have already secured tools and equipment necessary to make your barbecue catering business a success.

You will then have to pay for the waiting staff as well as any rentals, if there are any. If there is a way for you to cut down on other irrelevant expenses, then do so.

Equipment

The equipment is part of your operating costs or expenses that can reduce your income, that is why make sure you would invest in quality equipment that will last for a long time rather than buying cheaper equipment that will not last long, which means additional expenses because you will then have to buy a new one. If you have completed most of the vital equipment, you will be able to qualify for booking larger events.

Here are some of the possible equipment you might need to secure beforehand:

insulated carriers and the cooking equipment

method of transportation such as a truck or van

refrigerator

food warming equipment

grill

Products

Barbecues could be slow-cooked, roasted, or smoked. But aside from the meat, you will have to deal with the other complements or the traditional accompaniments such as the coleslaw, portobello mushrooms, baking potatoes, corn on the cob, mustard, ketchup, mayonnaise, BBQ sauce, or burger relish.

And aside from the obvious barbecue, you will have to serve other items. Need some ideas? Here they are:

Speed Grill Business Plan Example

Street BBQ Business Plan Sample

We hope that with the help of this article, you are able to come up with a business plan for your future or even your current barbecue catering business. If you are interested in other catering business plans, you may also see Mobile Catering Business Plan Examples and Food Catering Business Plan Examples to guide and help you get started and inspired with your other business ideas and business ventures.